


The Reclamation of Salted Earth

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Series: move forward (there is nothing for you here) [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author Loves TVTropes, Character Study, Child Abuse, Dehumanization, Dissociation, Gen, I Made Zuko A Stepford Snarker And I'm Not Sorry, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Ozai Gets What He Deserves, Protective Zuko (Avatar), Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Seriously If Anyone Makes A TVTropes Page For This I Will Give Them My Blood, Suicidal Thoughts, They are all children, Zuko Angst, excessive use of parenthesis, he doesnt but he could give you some tips, i read the geneva convention four times for this shit appreciate me, no beta we die like men, so not really a songfic but kind of, story contains it's own soundtrack, the big brother instinct, toxic mindset, zuko & azula are toxic as hell but what else is new, zuko has a lot of issues and a very good guide on how to develop multiple personalities, zuko is a bit darker than canon, zuko isn't really gay but he does think jet is hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-09-30 13:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20447924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: salting the earth; the practice of spreading salt over a conquered city to both curse it and render its soil infertile, condemning its residents to famine.Zuko is many things throughout his life. Himself is just the one he never has the time for.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [several small fires](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223724) by [ohmygodwhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy). 

> My first multi-chapter, yay! (This is only in the Move Forward verse bc I want attention lol)
> 
> All the links lead to a song I recommend putting on loop during whatever part you're currently reading. Also, all quotes are taken from the Geneva Conventions.
> 
> Edit 10/23/19 Added in song titles for soundtrack.

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57nMDiqHwYA) \- Devil Town, Cavetown

_"suffering undue hardship"_

Kai is the one who teaches him to cook.

Maybe it should be his mother or his father or his Uncle or Lu Ten, but it isn't. It is the palaces chef who puts a big hand over Prince Zuko's tiny one and shows him how to chop a vegetable.

"This," The young man, the very young man, though Prince Zuko doesn't realize quite how young, at seven, because everyone seems old at seven says. "Is the most practical use of a knife." Then he laughs, and Prince Zuko laughs too, even though he doesn't get it.

Two weeks later, Kai leaves to join the army_ (He will not come back, but Prince Zuko doesn't know that yet)_. He cries about it a lot until Azula tells him that it'll be fine. She even hugs him, which she never does so he knows it's special, and he believes her.

**ii** **.**

One year later, Prince Zuko is out with Uncle when his eyes linger long, too long, on a set of Dao blades in a shop window. He stares because they're pretty, and the handles look well crafted, and he just wants to touch one of them and see how it feels.

Uncle notices him looking and then buys him the swords because Uncle is nice and generous and an idiot. An idiot because Prince Zuko knows he will get in trouble for this, knows because "What if I fought with a knife" and "Physical weapons are only for non-bending weaklings" and red burn marks that don't fade quickly enough.

He lets Uncle buy them anyway. He can hide them, he thinks.

And he does.

**iii** **.**

He swings them around in the training room when he's sure nobody else is around and hides them under his bed when he isn't.

He likes it more than bending, which he doesn't want to admit. It's a little like dancing, to Prince Zuko at least, because it's smooth and controlled and never anything bigger than it has to be.

Prince Zuko doesn't have anyone to fight so he just creates enemies in his head. It's a bit more fun like that, he thinks.

Azula finds him practicing one day, and he makes her swear not to tell anyone, crying for good measure, and she lies and says she won't. She doesn't tell Dad, at least, but she does tell Mom.

Mom confronts him about it later that night, demanding, with a tapping foot, that he explain, and he does. He tells her he only hid them because he thought Father would be mad, and she hugs him and promises that he can train whenever he wants, that she won't let his dad punish him for it as long as she's around, and then sings him to sleep with the sound of _Torrianse__._

She talks about it to Uncle, who signs him up for lessons with Piandao.

Piandao is a lot of things where most people are very little, but Prince Zuko likes him anyway. He is a strict teacher, which Prince Zuko is used to, but he also gives Prince Zuko ointment for the burns he comes to lessons with and never explains.

He doesn't explain because he knows it's just a normal thing that parents do to their kids sometimes and also because Piandao always looks like he probably knows anyway.

Piandao never gives him more praise than "Better than last time," but when he talks to Mother and he thinks Prince Zuko isn't listening _(But Prince Zuko is listening because it's become his favorite thing to do, sneak around the temple and see how long it takes for someone to spot him and then when they do insist that they help him get better until they can't spot him at all)_ he calls Prince Zuko "A prodigy" and "One of the best students."

Prince Zuko doesn't stop smiling for the longest time.

One night, there is a particularly horrible storm, and Prince Zuko is forced to stay at the temple. He watches the lightning from inside with an entranced look. It's very pretty.

Piandao makes dinner, and they sit on mats and eat while talking about how Prince Zuko's training is going. Then, that conversation derails when Prince Zuko makes a joke about how Piandao looks the villain from the play Love Amongst Dragons, which he does, and Piandao makes threats about tomorrows training and curses good-naturedly while Prince Zuko laughs and he thinks it is the happiest he's been in a long time.

He almost asks if he can stay with Piandao. He doesn't.

**iv.**

Lessons with Piandao make Bending Practice so dull it is nearly unbearable. Prince Zuko has hardly improved, and it keeps him up at night, tossing and turning and wondering when it will all crash down.

The answer, it turns out, is two months after the incident with the storm.

His father is disappointed, Mother tells him. He needs to spend more time on his bending. He's banned from practicing with his Dao until he's better, until he is more.

When Prince Zuko hears about it, he runs out into the garden and curls up underneath the branches of a tree until Azula manages to (_"Are you really going to stay there all night?"_

_"Maybe I am."_

_"You're an idiot. You'll freeze to death. And if that doesn't kill you, Dad will."_

_Silence._

_"Come on already, I'm getting cold. Just come inside."_

_More silence._

_"Ugh, fine. _Please, _come inside.") _coax him out.

**v.**

When Lu Ten dies, everything shifts.

All the foundations that were supposed to hold things together move, lurch forward and farther and out of place. Things change.

Iroh stays, but he is different. Ozai is Firelord, and he is different too. Lu Ten is the same, but he is gone, away, smoke, destroyed in a funeral pyre that burned longer than it should have, dead, gone. And mom is gone, in a different way.

Not dead, just suddenly un-constant.

His sister's different too, darker in a way that Prince Zuko doesn't like to think about. Her face has more shadows than it used to. He can sneak past everyone in the castle but her.

**vi.**

When Prince Zuko is eleven years old, he breaks his arm.

Well, that's the story he feeds his uncle when he asks Prince Zuko what happened, he says specifically "I broke my arm" even though the "I" doesn't really belong there.

In reality, his father broke his arm. But his father did it because Prince Zuko was practicing with the Dao when he shouldn't have been, and he's not good enough at firebending to have other interests yet, so maybe the "I" is not so out of place, really.

Azula thinks so, at least. And Azula is Father's favorite, and she's Father's favorite because she's smart, and because she's smart she's probably right, so he believes her.

_(One year ago, his mother became gone. Azula says she's not coming back and Prince Zuko believes her except for when he doesn't.)_

**vii** **.**

Prince Zuko is angrier these days. It's not very noticeable on the outside, but on the inside, every wrong move makes him boil, like there's molten acid in his chest eating through his ribcage all the time but he can't tell anyone about it because it's already swallowed his lungs.

He tries to push the acid down into his stomach, but all that does is make him feel empty, tired, sad, and unable to eat, so he chooses to let it fester instead. He tries not to yell too much, even though he's mad. He's afraid opening his mouth that big will let people see how rotten everything is on the inside.

When he's thirteen, Prince Zuko almost makes it out of a war meeting alive.

There's a lot less _making it out_ and a lot more _almost_ than he'd like to admit, though.

The thing is that he is so angry, angry in the way that only young people can be, where it fills you to the brim and will travel up your esophagus and choke you if you do not sing with it, if you are not ripping at the seams with wrath at every moment. He looks around at these old men, who were once young men, and wonders if they have felt rage this way. He cannot comprehend a life where one is not angry.

The only way he can imagine anyone being anything but outraged is if they are not paying attention.

_(Azula proves him wrong when she cheers in the stands as he begs on his knees for his father's forgiveness. She is not angry, and she is paying _very_ close attention.)_

He barely remembers her though, by the time his father has grabbed his hair in one hand and seared a hole inside him with the other. Everything burns so horrifically bright, moving in slow motion _(His father reaching out as though to brush away his tears as he is cradled almost gently by a hand bigger and stronger and more than his own, even as he is destroyed by the sun itself, like Agni come to take his soul)._

He is glad that, at the least, his eyes were closed.

**viii** **.**

Prince Zuko is here, is there, is burning until he isn't.

The corpse of a Prince lays on the floor, and a medic carries The Exile out alive.

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9R1qz8HQPQ) \- 10 Feet Tall, Cavetown

_"or otherwise deprived of liberty"_

Uncle Iroh is the one who takes him.

Iroh, when things are said and done and over and burning in the middle of an arena, takes him away. Wraps him up when he wakes tense and frozen, pleas for forgiveness dancing on his tongue with burning feet. Feeds him when his whole body is bubbling and his stomach is too unsteady for food even though he needs it. Cleans his wound and puts bandages around it when The Exile's hands shake too greatly to do it himself.

Stays even when reminded that he is holding and feeding and healing a failure. Stays when that failure stops being a failure and starts being a disgrace.

Refuses to leave even when The Exile tells him to.

Uncle is sitting at his bedside when a servant says that he can return if he captures the Avatar. Uncle gets a look of anger and pity on his face, but The Exile's head is too busy spinning with the prospect of redemption.

"I can do it," He tells Uncle. Uncle doesn't look like he believes him, but The Exile doesn't care because he can go _home, _maybe, someday, hopefully.

_(The Exile hears a lot more than people think he does. The nurses all whisper it's a fool's errand and he's the only one who can't see it. He'll show them though. He is too angry to ever stop moving.)_

He gets a ship.

He gets a tiny ship, and a crew of bastards no one else wanted, and the disadvantage just makes his blood hotter._ (They can try to throw him to the wolves all they want, he decides._

_He's going to fucking eat them alive.)_

**ii** **.**

The first time he sees himself without the bandages, he throws the mirror against the wall. It shatters on the ground and the shards reflect the ceiling, staring back at him as if to ask why he did that.

He brings his hands up and digs his nails into his collarbones, dragging them over the skin to try and bring back sensation in his body. He feels revolt and disgust shudder through him from the center of his chest, making him nauseous. He looks like a monster.

Then his nails catch on his skin and he is brought back to earth.

Fine.

Fine. The Exile can be a monster. He can be evil and cruel and angry if that's what he has to be.

When he walks outside his cabin without the bandages, Captain Jee stares with tiny pupils. "What?" The Exile snaps. He's already regretting this. But he holds his head up as high as he can anyways. He can't cower for anyone.

Giving in has never gotten him anything except hurt.

"Nothing, sir." Jee gets a look of approval, just a bit, before turning away.

"Good." He almost yells, but it doesn't feel right. He yells a lot more now, these days. He is not as afraid of people seeing down his throat any more. He wants them to be scared of him.

**iii** **.**

They hunt the Avatar for a long time.

The Exile gets older, during that long time, and he grows into his scar rather than out of it. He tries to be the type of person people look at him and expect him to be because that's a lot easier than anything else.

**iv.**

The first time he meets Captain Zhao, he's fourteen (That's almost a lie, they met once when The Exile was eleven but Zhao was all honeyed words and saccharine smiles so it was more like meeting his desire for a promotion). Zhao looks down at him, forms his lips up into a sneer, and says "You'll never find the Avatar."

The Exile looks up at Zhao (Triple his age, triple his status, triple his monster), makes his best expression of disinterest and replies "Fucking watch me."

Zhao slips and turns furious. The Exile feels only the faintest flicker of fear, even though Zhao could probably kill him because he's not a Prince anymore, because The Exile would like to see him try.

Zhao doesn't say anything. He walks away.

It feels good to control this.

**v** **.**

He buys the Blue Spirit mask on a whim. He's looking through the market stalls and his eyes catch on it, and he remembers his mother's stories about it and then he just kind of has to.

He stuffs it under his bed like he did with his swords. He's probably not going to wear it.

(But he does, he does, he does, and the worst part is that he never regrets it.)

**vi** **.**

A year later The Exile finds The Avatar. They're sailing through the South Pole when he sees a light and he just knows what it is. He's so homesick that a viper wraps around his lungs as soon as he sees it because _he's_ _going home, he's going home, he's going home._

And The Avatar is there.

As The Exile watches him fly away with the two Water Tribe brats, he's frozen solid because _T__he Avatar is a child. __The Avatar is a child. __The Avatar __is a child._

Then he shakes himself.

It doesn't matter.

_(And it does, it does, it does.)_

**vii** **.**

The Exile meets Zhao again, and this time no one walks away. They duel, and The Exile wins, and Uncle calls him honorable which he isn't, he isn't, he isn't.

Zhao calls him a coward which he is, he is, he is because The Avatar is a child.

He chases The Avatar anyway. He has never wanted anything more than home.

**viii** **.**

The Exile burns down Kyoshi Island.

He burns it because he's angry and he's homesick and all of them are children, but he can't admit that yet because that would make it true and The Exile doesn't want to be a child anymore.

He wants to be older so this can be easier because hurting kids is just something adults do sometimes, but he can't do it and he wishes he could because that would make him so much less.

He doesn't like being so many things when most people are so little. He doesn't know how Piandao did it.

He wishes he was just angry instead of whatever the Hell he is now.

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYwcSIBdOik) \- Werewolf Gimmick, The Mountain Goats

_"method or means of combat"_

The Blue Spirit breaks into Pohuai Stronghold.

Before he does, though, he leaves The Exile behind. Slips on a mask and becomes someone else, just temporarily. The Exile doesn't die in the process, though.

He doesn't die, he just suddenly becomes un-constant.

The Blue Spirit grabs a bucket of water because The Blue Spirit isn't a bender. Then, he creeps into Pohuai Stronghold on a carriage and he breaks out The Avatar.

The Blue Spirit and The Avatar make a good team. Not good enough though, because The Blue Spirit gets hit by an arrow and when he wakes up his mask is gone and he is just The Exile.

The Avatar looks at him sadly and asks if they could have been friends.

The Exile thinks the fireball is response enough.

_(It isn't though, because if it was then The Exile would stop thinking about it.)_

[**i** **x** **.**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9R1qz8HQPQ) \- 10 Feet Tall, Cavetown

Zhao takes his crew.

**x.**

Zhao blows up his ship.

_Zhao blows up his ship._

That insignificant little bitch blows up The Exile's ship and tries to murder him and he almost does it. The Exile is buried beneath debris and oil and the weight of water on his clothes.

But he pulls himself out because he refuses to die here. He refuses to let _Zhao _be the one who kills him because Zhao is raiding the North Pole and The Exile isn't fucking done yet. He almost leaves The Exile behind, almost thinks about getting out of the water as someone new, but he doesn't.

Instead, he pulls out the heavy and waterlogged corpse of his body, drags it with him when it starts floating downstream and in his head, he screams at it. _You are not allowed to give up on me,_ he says as he hauls it to shore._ I'm not _fucking _done yet._

His swords are gone and so is his mask; He does not have a body to crawl back to.

The Exile coughs up water on land, coughs up a bit of his lungs too, and then Uncle Iroh finds him.

Uncle tells him he should stop and rest, but Uncle has been telling him to do that for years and The Exile never has. And he definitely can't do it now because he isn't done enough to stop moving yet.

_(The Exile can't stop because he's not dead, and if he's not dead then he's not done, and if he's not done that means he still has work to do._

_He is terribly tired.)_

**xi** **.**

The Exile sneaks on Zhao's ship. It's not that hard, really. Zhao should update his security, and maybe get more familiar with his crew. The Exile would have been able to tell immediately if one of his was an impostor.

Probably.

He sneaks onto Zhao's ship, and then he sneaks off it, but before he does Uncle talks to him and says _("Ever since my son died, I think of you as my own")_ a lot of things. Mostly about safety, which The Exile remembers for all of five minutes before he watches some animals he's never seen before disappearing into a hole in the ice.

They have to come up for air somewhere, he supposes as he jumps in.

He's an idiot, he supposes ten minutes later, gasping and coughing up ice-cold water that chills him down to his center.

He captures The Avatar though, so that whole business of near-death hardly matters. Then, something bubbles up to the surface and he ends up monologuing to an unconscious twelve-year-old about how shitty everything is because everything is shitty and The Exile is pretty sure he has a broken rib, somewhere in there. But he can't stop, because he doesn't have time, and he needs it all to leave his chest before he explodes.

It doesn't make any of the pressure let up, but The Exile's starting to think that's just how things are with him.

He passes out sometime around there, and when he wakes up he's on the back of The Avatar's bison. Lovely.

He slips away while they're talking and runs after Zhao because that fucker needs to know he's a failure. He doesn't think he's going to kill Zhao, because he likes to think he isn't that kind of person.

He doesn't kill Zhao.

Zhao dies anyway.

It's not The Exile's fault, at least. That hardly makes it any better.

**x** **ii** **.**

The Exile meets up with Uncle and they float out of the North Pole on a raft. The Exile is tired, but then he stops being tired and starts being scared because _he thought The Avatar was a pacifist._

That doesn't change the bodies they float past on their way out. Uncle is asleep through most of it, which The Exile is glad about, because Uncle might be older and might not need his protection but The Exile still doesn't want him to see this.

Uncle thinks he's asleep, too, right now. But really he's sitting up, knees pulled to his chest and nails scraping across his collarbones, only he does it until there's blood running down his chest and trapped beneath his fingernails and he's still not back to earth, he's still scanning the bodies for the faces of people he knows and he knows a lot of them.

_(Before, when he was stressed or worried or too angry to talk to anyone without setting the room on fire, The Exile would go into the kitchen and float around while his hands were busy with the most practical application of a knife. One time, the cook, Akahaki, caught him, and The Exile made him swear not to tell anyone. Nobody whispered about it when they thought he wasn't looking, so he always assumed the promise was kept._

_Akahaki always smiled about it when The Exile asked, laughed a little and brushed it off, said he was the same way as a kid, embarrassed about it, at least until he met his husband, who couldn't cook to save his life and would wax poetic about the food for days._

_He sees Akahaki's face in the water, dead-eyed and puffy._

_He tries not to think about it.)_

He wants to shed his body so he can leave this behind like he left behind the burning corpse of a Prince two years ago, but his skin clings to him no matter how much he tries to rip it off, stubborn and immovable.

His lungs shrink. His mouth tastes like salt. He thinks he's going to die here.

_(Vaguely, he wants to die here. But he never gets what he wants, so he won't.)_

He hears Uncle stirring, and he relaxes his body. They have floated past the waterlogged corpses, mostly, so The Exile tries to build himself bigger, even though he feels small enough to fall through the cracks in the raft.

"Hey, Uncle." The Exile keeps his voice calm. He's willing to float down into the depths of the ocean, but he isn't willing to watch Uncle do the same, so he'll save them both if that's what he has to do.

He hates Uncle sometimes, but he doesn't have anyone else.

**xiii** **.**

He meets Azula again.

He thinks she's welcoming him home, but then it turns out she isn't because of course she isn't, because Azula is a liar.

She kills The Exile with a lightning bolt that doesn't hit. He gathers everything he does not want to leave with its corpse and runs from her like he has for as long as she has chased him.

The Traitor cuts off his Phoenix Tail and is reborn.

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGeLUXNl--0) \- Saint Bernard, Lincoln

_"to whichever party they belong"_

The Earth Kingdom is something different and yet something very familiar all at once.

The Traitor and his Uncle are wandering for only a few days _(He has forgotten what it feels like to grow hair on his head when he has not for so long. It makes the scar look less, he has found, and he has always tried to make it exactly what it is, even when he doesn't want to) _when Uncle manages to poison himself.

He is healed by a pretty young girl named Song. She asks him what his name is and he lies and says it's Li.

She asks him where his father is and he lies and says at war.

She tells him about her scars and he lies to himself and says that it is a price worth paying. He steals her ostrich-horse in an attempt to grow into a bigger monster's skin.

It doesn't do anything but make him feel very sick and very afraid and very, very alone.

**ii** **.**

The Traitor and his uncle beg for coin on scorched Earth Kingdom stone.

The Traitor bubbles with venom as he watches his uncle dance for a single piece of gold.

The Dao blades the man who humiliates him holds glitter in the harsh sunlight.

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0WYiK52Dg) \- Body, Mother Mother

_"consequent severe losses"_

The Blue Spirit steals a new face, that night, from an abandoned cart of theater masks. He takes it as a sign.

The man's swords are taken with ease.

He missed the freedom this body entailed.

**ii** **.**

He steals again.

**iii** **.**

And again.

**iv.**

He steals from a young couple who deserve the food more than he does because The Blue Spirit is not a good person.

Uncle doesn't say anything, but the way he looks at his nephew, all sad and hooded and disappointed gives the impression that he knows anyway.

[**iii** **.**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGeLUXNl--0) \- Saint Bernard

The Traitor leaves Uncle behind.

He walks away from the only person who has ever cared for him without conditions, because he is not a good person, no matter what skin he is wearing.

**iv.**

The Traitor realizes that he is not a traitor when he almost dies in the Earth Kingdom desert.

He isn't a traitor because he was an exile before, and to be a traitor you have to have something to betray.

He stumbles into a tiny war ruined town and sheds a skin, pulling himself out of the husk left behind by strength of spite alone.

Li is dragged from the ashes of his previous human with the screams of a sinner pleading his throat dry on his knees, begging a priest, a father, a god for absolution.

An Earth Kingdom soldier takes his food and rides away, kicking dust into Li's face, and when he spits out the conquered, salted earth it hits the ground like a refusal.


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 8/31/19: Was wrong about solar time lol

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APjVO-COYog) \- From Eden, Hozier

_"in relation to the victims"_

The child reminds him of Azula except for when he doesn't.

Li isn't reminded of Azula when he is grabbed by the hand and guided to a farmhouse, or when he is given food, or when he watches the child talk about the war, all young and innocent because there is nothing else he has to be.

He does remind Li of his sister _(She's still his sister; she was Prince Zuko's sister and The Exile's sister and The Blue Spirit's sister because she is the one thing he has always taken with him when he grabs a new name, and he's not through enough skins yet to understand why)_ when Li looks at him and all noise is blotted out except for the voice in his head screaming at him to protect this tiny child who cannot defend themselves yet. Azula has always been able to defend herself, but that didn't stop the voice when he was eight and rushing into her room, fleeing an assassin just because he had to make sure she was alright, and it doesn't stop it now.

_(She was, physically, technically, staring at a scorched body on the floor with big eyes and crying, and he held her for the longest time until a guard came in and even then he didn't let go, and when later in the infirmary she asked him to he told her he was still scared even though he wasn't, not for himself, and she pushed her lips together and said "Fine, but only because I don't want you crying on me" and hugged him back and when he felt how badly she was shaking he didn't say anything because then she would have let go.)_

He is also reminded of Azula when the child spits at his feet and says exactly what hurts the most. Azula always excelled in that field.

He moves forward.

**ii** **.**

He doesn't, technically, mean to.

He's moving across the desert, hungry and tired and filled up with ache when he sees the white fur.

His first thought is that the kid can't be that stupid.

His second thought is _of course he can._

So, he doesn't technically mean to start tracking The Avatar again. He doesn't even know what he'll do when he stops the tracking part and gets to the fighting part. He doesn't think The Avatar can really fix all of his problems, now.

Then, he sees the machine tracks following the fur.

He doesn't know what to do with The Avatar, but maybe fighting his sister can help work out the big knot in his chest, the one that's been fogging up his mind and clogging all his systems.

Or maybe he should just eat something.

**iii** **.**

The next day and night are spent tracking The Avatar/The Avatar's bison/Azula. Li passes through a town. He sees a wanted poster. It's not his.

He tears it down. Looks at the reward with starving-person eyes. He could stop being hungry for the price of something; He doesn't know what the price is yet, but if there's one thing he's learned it's that the price is always something.

He shoves the poster in his bag.

**iv.**

He finds the man a town and 15 degrees of the sun over _(In Earth Kingdom time, he thinks that's an hour, but he has always learned by the sun. Or, Prince Zuko has always learned by the sun. Li is Earth Kingdom. He should learn that better)_.

He doesn't put on The Blue Spirit mask, because it is wanted too, but he does take a piece of his clothes and tie it over his mouth, and he does pull something over his head, and that's a little like a mask so he slips away as easily as ever.

[v.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0WYiK52Dg) \- Body, Mother Mother

The Blue Spirit sneaks up on the man and knocks him over the head with the butt of a sword. He is unconscious before he can defend himself.

The Blue Spirit hefts the body over his shoulder _(His bony shoulder, bonier than it used to be because he is hungry, always. The man is heavier than a komodo-rhino, it feels like, even though he isn't) _and walks into the guard station. The men inside look up in surprise, before The Blue Spirit throws the man onto the ground and holds out the wanted poster.

They give him his food.

He eats, slowly, carefully, saving as much as possible. He cannot imagine throwing anything away for the rest of his life.

The mask falls down. The bars go up. It only takes a few seconds for him to start feeling homesick.

[v.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APjVO-COYog) \- From Eden, Hozier

He fights Azula; Li, that is.

He teams up with The Avatar, and The Avatar's team, and Uncle. He looks at Uncle and an apology gets stuck somewhere in the back of his throat and just kind of sits there, hot and uncomfortable.

Then, Uncle gets hurt, and Li can't do much besides keep The Avatar and his team away. He's certain that they can only cause pain, right now, because everything is hurting, right now. His pride is pacing up and down somewhere inside his ribcage, scratching against the bars with an outstretched hand. It's all achy and acidic and wrong, and he doesn't know where to go from here.

So he doesn't. Go anywhere, that is.

**vi** **.**

Uncle wakes up.

Then, Uncle tries to teach him how to lightning bend, which doesn't work as well as Li wants it to_ (It doesn't work at all, actually, which isn't surprising, because Azula is better than him with everything else, why would this be any exception?)._

Uncle almost teaches him how to redirect lightning. Almost because he shows Li the form and then does nothing else, acting like it would be anything outside the bounds of reality for Li to have to use it.

He hates it.

**vii** **.**

Uncle will not teach him, so instead he asks the sky.

He stands on a mountain and screams for a god he does not know the name of to give him a gift he does not desire to protect him from a sister he wishes he didn't need protection from.

The sky thunders on and gives him nothing.

**viii** **.**

Uncle knows something, and someone and his White Lotus tile does too, and before Li knows it they're on the ferry to Ba Sing Se. He looks like a refugee.

He feels like a refugee.

Li _is _a refugee, he reminds himself. Stop forgetting that.

Before he can properly work something up to tell Uncle, maybe an apology, or maybe just another complaint, he can't tell with himself lately, a boy interrupts. Li uses the term boy loosely; The guy looks about his age, if not older. Or maybe that's just the height difference.

He says something about the Captain eating like a king. He looks like the righteous type, in an odd, unsettling way.

His name is Jet.

Jet gives Li bad feelings. Not in any outward way; Jet is attractive, and Zuko can appreciate when Agni's done good, but there's something about the way Jet talks that makes all of that moot. He's got a certain unsettling quality about him, like a painting of a tree where the artist ran out of dark green paint halfway through and had to start using light green paint instead. Not exactly horrible or scary, but off.

Jet says he knows who Li is, that night, standing on the edge of the ship. "An outcast," He says like he knows anything about what Li's life is. Like he's ever had a hole burned open inside him like he's ever watched a body float down a river and pray to fall in just so he can stop looking.

"The Fire Nation killed my parents," Jet says. He and Li lock eyes and for only the briefest of moments, there is a comradery there, an acknowledgment of open wounds. A nod from Jet, like he looks at Li and sees something and is nodding in an _'I can't fix you but I can see you bleeding, and that matters a lot, doesn't it?'_ kind of way.

Li isn't sure if it does. He's not sure about much of anything, anymore.

**ix.**

He and Uncle start work in a tea shop. They get an apartment in the Lower Ring. Li flickers in and out of reality like a campfire on it's last few dying embers.

Life moves forward, and onward, and over without his knowledge or consent. That's the big thing about life that Uncle keeps trying to tell him, isn't it? It just keeps going forward, whether you want it to or not?

The other thing about life, the thing that he learned himself, that Uncle never tried to teach him, is that it can always find a way to make things go wrong.

In this case, the thing is Jet, and the wrong is that he knows they're Fire Benders.

_Shame, _Li thinks as he watches the Dai Li drag Jet away. _You were pretty._ Of course, Li would have never wanted to stick with Jet, but he had nice hair.

**x.**

They get a new apartment in the Upper Ring. It's warmer and fancier and still not enough. He is homesick for a place he does not come from. Or, a place he should not come from.

Li is getting sick of the skin he is wearing; Of being a refugee, and serving tea, and being peaceful, and of keeping his head down and his throat closed because he's not supposed to be a monster.

He can't remember ever learning to be anything else, though.

Li is tired.

**xi.**

The Avatar is in Ba Sing Se.

_The Avatar is in Ba Sing Se._

_Of fucking course he is._

Agni damn it all.

[vi.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0WYiK52Dg) \- Body, Mother Mother

The Blue Spirit returns.

There are no wanted posters of him here, no one to hunt him down. He gets the upper hand on a Dai Li guard and feels exhilaration make his heart pound so hard it nearly flies away, out of his rib cage and into the cool night air.

He breaks into Lake Laogai, which makes his head swim. _(He loves this more than he has ever loved Fire Bending, which he will never be allowed to admit. Just the thrill of being somewhere he is not supposed to be and having no one know, of using his swords and slipping seamlessly into the mask that he wears with no thoughts of burn scars he doesn't have and fathers he doesn't need to make love him and a sister he has always protected.)_

He finds the Avatar's bison under Lake Laogai. He gets a sense of calm that he has been missing for years. He doesn't know what he's doing from here, but he knows it's sure as hell something. He- He's doing something.

That counts, right?

**vii.**

Uncle finds The Blue Spirit before he can decide what something is supposed to mean.

He takes off the mask.

[xii.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APjVO-COYog) \- From Eden, Hozier

"It's time to start asking yourself the real questions," Uncle tells Li with the angriest voice he has ever used. "Who are you, and what do _you_ want?"

And he can't answer.

It should be so simple. He knows who he is, he made the different names so he would stop being confused. And he wants to capture The Avatar because if he captures The Avatar then Father will let him come home and if he goes home then everything will be fine again.

He throws the mask and swords on the floor.

He is tired of being anything at all.

[vii.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0WYiK52Dg) \- Body, Mother Mother

The second Blue Spirit drowns at the bottom of Lake Laogai. As he lets the mask float down and away, he gets a tight, sick feeling in his stomach.

It feels like someone has just handed him the key to a cage he never knew he was trapped in, and then they took the key back and let it melt between their fingertips.

He has a headache.

The Blue Spirit dies with the quiet screams of a thousand men, damned to follow him down into the darkness of the lake, unknowing of anything coming next aside from the grim certainty that none of it will ever be the same as it used to be.

And it isn't.

**[xiii.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APjVO-COYog) \- **From Eden, Hozier

Li only feels sicker when they get back home. His head is pounding through his skull and his heart hits his chest like a running man's footstep.

And then, he collapses.

**ix.**

Prince Zuko sits on a throne. Two dragons dance around him, speaking different ideas with different voices. He knows them if he stops long enough to remember.

Then, he's being pulled in every direction; By Azula, by Mom, by Iroh. He doesn't understand anything at all.

He gets up desperately thirsty. He goes into the bathroom and looks in the mirror.

He wakes up screaming.

_(He was The Avatar, and he was himself, and he was a child for the first time in as long as he can remember.)_

**xiv.**

When Li wakes up, he feels better.

Or at least, he's trying to feel better, trying to sink farther into his chosen skin. He doesn't have a mask to free him, so he decides to decorate his prison cell as best he can.

He sounds like Uncle.

**xv.**

Things are almost going well again. Uncle has a new tea shop and they're getting invited to serve the Earth King and Li has an itching feeling in his stomach that tells him everything is going to go horribly wrong.

So of course that's when his sister shows up.

Uncle fights the Dai Li agents with his breath of fire _(He always manages to forget how powerful his Uncle is when it's all drinking tea and bad jokes and missing Pai Sho tiles. But then he is reminded, very suddenly, that Iroh was called The Dragon of the West for a reason)_ and they almost manage to escape. Then, Li stops.

He is tired of running from Azula.

"What, are you going to challenge me to an Agni Kai?" She mocks.

"Why the hell not?" He replies.

"Well, I decline."

"Agni, you are such a _bitch_ sometimes." Her smile drops into a sneer. He almost laughs. Li feels like the type of person to laugh at things like that. Then he does.

Azula flicks a hand up, and he's surrounded by Dai Li. He can't fight them off, but that's not a surprise. He gives it his best shot anyway.

**xvi.**

They throw him in an underground prison with the Water Bender. He thinks her name is Katara.

The tension in the room is so heavy he can taste it. He hasn't seen her in a long time. His head feels like it's swimming again, like he's not sure who he is anymore.

She makes him feel like The Exile, and Azula makes him feel like Prince Zuko, and Uncle makes him feel a lot of things he doesn't understand.

"The Fire Nation took my mother away from me!" Katara yells. He doesn't know why he responds, maybe just because he's been bottling it up inside for so long it's starting to eat through his foundations, but he does.

"I'm sorry," He says, like he means it, and he might. "That's something we have in common."

She offers to heal his scar for him. He doesn't know how to respond to that. He doesn't know who he'd be without it.

He's glad Uncle shows up before he has to answer.

He's not as glad about Azula showing up a few moments later.

"You can reclaim your honor," She promises, like she means it, and she might.

He doesn't know who he is, because he's everything, all at the same time. He's Prince Zuko and The Exile and The Blue Spirit and The Traitor and Li and anything else he might have been in between.

Azula says that she needs him. He's only ever wanted her to need him _(And maybe to love him, if she has any room left, even though he doesn't think she does)._ And he thinks joining her makes him a monster, and he doesn't know how to be anything else.

He betrays Uncle because he is not a good person. 

Azula kills The Avatar _(Who is a child, a child, a child, they're all children dressed up in adult clothes pretending to be big and strong and more than they are but they are kids playing war except it's stop being play, now, because one of them just died)_.

He goes back home with her anyway. He helps her conquer Ba Sing Se anyway.

He tries to leave Li behind with as much delicacy as possible, carefully tucked away. But every piece of the body is torn away with ferocity, taking their pound of flesh and leaving him bloody and aching.

The kindest skin he has worn, and the most painful to leave.

The Prince builds himself less and bigger and more as best he can. His bones shake as he pulls himself free, prying open his rib cage and climbing through the bars.

He always expected freedom to taste like the open night sky, but all he can feel on his tongue right now is sulfur.

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=080CFmpeWdM) Just Add Water, Cavetown

_"the broadest possible amnesty"_

The first thing The Prince does when he gets home is take a shower.

He thinks of going to the pond or talking to anyone in the Palace that he hasn't seen in three years, but all of his energy exits somewhere around his fingertips at the mere concept of socialization.

He feels sick at the weight of everything he has done, these three years, sick and grimy and impure.

So he goes to his ceremony, is escorted back to his room, and then he showers until he feels like every piece of him has been peeled apart and open. He stands under the hot water for even longer, after that, until scrubbing his arm makes it bleed and little red droplets fall down the shower drain.

He gets out, after that. He doesn't want to cause any lasting damage.

**ii.**

The Prince spends most of his time feeding the turtleducks, alone. Azula occasionally appears and attempts to vaguely threaten and/or insult him, but he usually laughs or brushes her off with a sarcastic comment.

Not many things can faze you when you've looked death in the eyes and told it to back off and wait its turn.

Azula is not a fan of his new philosophy, predictably.

He passes his time by laughing at Azula and spying on the Palace staff _(He almost wants to start a new rumor just to give them something to talk about, Agni help him)_ but what he's waiting for is an audience with his father.

Maybe getting confirmation will take the lead off of his bones.

**iii.**

It doesn't.

His father paces around the room and The Prince kneels before him like he always has, and then he learns that Father thinks he killed The Avatar which makes him feel a lot of things he doesn't know how to describe.

Father says he is proud, though. It makes everything less heavy except for when it doesn't.

Azula has another motive for letting him take credit because of course she does. If it weren't an elaborate attempt to both undermine him and gain his loyalty at the same time, he might even be proud.

He goes back to his room and takes another shower. He turns the water on cold this time and lets it sting his deepest aches. They only intensify. He wonders if he will ever stop hurting.

**iv.**

He visits Uncle.

The prison is colder than he thought it'd be. There is only one guard outside Uncle's cell, and he's easily silenced with vague threats.

The Prince stands outside of his Uncle's jail cell. Uncle Iroh stares resolutely toward the wall even as The Prince spits and yells until his throat clogs up with acid and blood, thick copper burning and bruising his vision until everything looks washed out and grey.

He leaves the prison feeling like his skin is on fire.

He gets home and takes another shower.

**v.**

Azula approaches him one day, as he's feeding the turtleducks. She warns him that if word got out he was visiting Uncle, there would be hell to pay.

"I'm just looking out for you, Dum-Dum." She smiles, as soft as he's seen her do since he was nine and she was seven and they were playing Earth Kingdom soldier. He always got killed by the Earth Kingdom, and she always avenged him. She promised every time they finished playing that she would die next time, and he could avenge her, but she never did.

He smiles back, just to himself.

**vi.**

A week later, they're both forced into the fanciest clothes possible and thrown into the middle of a party. The Prince feels awkward and out of place, like a spearhead in a pile of wooden sticks; Too sharp and unrefined.

He missed most of the training he was supposed to get in preparation for being a crown prince.

He goes up to the bar. A few drinks can probably make up for it.

He tosses back bitter vodka, and his face constricts. He's only ever had alcohol once in his life; Thirteen, fresh into banishment and desperate to prove himself. One of the crew members offered him a mug, told him to drink up, then laughed when he threw up his guts later. Uncle was really mad about that.

He already has a headache.

"All that time at sea turned him savage, I hear." The Prince turns towards the sound of Noble Lady Nara's voice _(He wouldn't remember her name, but he could never forget her because of how much he and Azula made fun of her sickly sweet smiles and two-faced gossip)_.

"They changed him completely. He acts like a common peasant now; His topknot hardly holds, and he swears like a sailor! He's completely unrefined. It's disgraceful, honestly." Lady Nara sniffs and turns up her nose in an exaggerated gesture for the captive audience of a girl The Prince swears is Nara's daughter.

He rolls his eyes. He'll swear however much he wants.

The alcohol dulls any anger, mostly. That is until Nara opens her mouth again. "And that sister of his is simply disturbing. Mentally unwell, I'm sure of it. Our great leader deserved far better."

He's the only one who can hear her, he thinks. That's why she's being so bold with her words. That and her status as a family friend would make her hard to disappear.

He's dealt with enough personal insults to have thick skin, but insulting Azula is off-limits to everyone except him. That's just how this shit works.

He's only just started to march forward, however, when a hand in front of his chest stops him. He blinks. Azula.

"Calm down, brother. You don't want to end up throttling a noblewoman during your first party back home." Her voice is calm, deceptively so. He can hear the undercurrent of cold fury, though.

"But she called you-"

"I'm aware!" Azula's voice is sharp, and she sounds utterly sober, despite the empty wineglass in her hand. "Bide your time. You don't always get what you want right away." She pauses for a moment, then: "Go to bed, Zuzu. You're drunk."

He tries to smile at her, but it feels like it comes out all wrong. He doesn't know how to smile all that well, especially at Azula. He doesn't think it ends up right.

She smiles back a little anyway, before pushing him towards the door and wandering off to find Mai or Ty Lee.

It's kind of funny, in hindsight, how they used to do the reverse of this back when they were kids, and Azula would sneak out through the hole behind the painting while Prince Zuko distracted the adults in the room so they wouldn't report her missing for a few hours.

Well, it's not really funny. It doesn't make him laugh, just sets a molten sadness in the pit of his stomach that makes it kind of hard to breathe. He gets around it though.

He stumbles back to his room and sits beneath the spray of the shower, trying to wash away the horrible feeling settling down inside him.

It follows him into his dreams. He hasn't been sleeping well, lately.

**vii.**

He keeps visiting Uncle, even though he shouldn't. Uncle just makes every open wound burn with more intensity, like he's pouring inside salt with every word he doesn't say.

Maybe The Prince deserves to be bleeding, if even silence can make him shake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> review to clear my skin and water my crops


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna space this out over a few days but then I got bored and wrote everything lol enjoy this finished work.
> 
> Edit: I have no self-control so you get a playlist too, enjoy: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0TpaXPdR4OMinYu8cuioLg

[viii.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqfDjmAkq7U) \- Cut My Hair, Mounika

Ember Island is even worse than The Prince thought it would be. He remembers it, how it used to be, which doesn't make things any better, because he remembers the sound of the water against the shore and Azula laughing and the happy sounds that their family made that one day they just never made again.

The fact that he has to stand around with Mai and Ty Lee and Azula and pretend he wants to talk to any of them doesn't make it any better.

The Prince discovers an old photo of his family, and just looking at it has all of his emotions building up inside him like a typhoon. His heart is burning a hole in his chest and his throat is closing in on itself, choking him with regret and grief and everything else.

He wishes they hadn't come here.

**ix.**

Azula finds him, sitting on the stairs, holding a slab of stone with his own tiny handprint in it _(He doesn't feel like him and the little ghost of a child who made the handprint can exist on the same plain, because he feels tainted and wrong and he doesn't want to hurt that old body he used to wear. It has suffered enough for him_.)

"Come on," She says. He can tell what her eyes are saying without looking up. "This place is depressing." He goes with her.

They all gather around the camp fire, sitting around like they're actually happy about any of this. The Prince burns the picture. He doesn't need it. It doesn't even look like him anymore.

**x.**

He yells at Ty Lee. Actually, he yells at everyone, including himself, but first he yells at Ty Lee.

He calls her a circus freak. The words taste bitter on his tongue.

"Who are you angry at, Zuko?" Ty Lee asks. Everyone repeats the question and it's said so much that the words begin to pound on the inside of skull like he's being split open and dissected for everyone to watch. He doesn't want them to look at him, anymore, he just wants everyone to stop moving and talking for two minutes so he can have some fucking quiet to gather his thoughts!

"I'm angry at myself," He finally pulls loose when all the other words get too big to drag out of his throat. It's not the right answer but its not exactly the wrong one, either. He's angry at everyone and everything all the time and he can't escape it because it's always there, buzzing under his skin like a swarm of vulture-wasps waiting to pick him apart.

He hates all of them; Mai's apathy and Ty Lee's fantasy world and Azula's inability to ever just fucking say she loves him, for once in her life. And he hates himself, for being angry and a traitor and a monster.

And he hates the whole world, too.

Maybe that's the one thing they all have in common; A mutual hatred of the world.

Either that or breaking some rich asshole's stuff.

Or maybe it's both.

**xi.**

Maybe The Prince should be more surprised that his great grandfather was Avatar Roku. But, as it stands, his life is too crazy to surprise him anymore.

He doesn't know how Uncle got the letter to him, though.

He wonders.

**xii.**

At first, he doesn't think he's invited to the war meeting.

Then, he gets invited, and he sits at his fathers' side and realizes he's doing exactly what The Prince should do. He sits down at the right hand of The Fire Lord, settles himself in, doesn't speak unless spoken to, and agrees with everything his father says. Him and Azula trade only a single sidelong glance.

But as the meeting moves forward, he starts to realize that this... isn't who he is. He's not small and settled in and obedient. He feels like he's been putting together a puzzle and just found out that he only has a quarter of the right pieces, and that everything he's been building has been part of the wrong picture.

He doesn't know what to do with the idea that this isn't what he wants.

**xiii.**

He doesn't think he is The Prince, really. He doesn't think any of the lives he's put together have been what he is. But he also doesn't know what to be without them.

But he does have a bit of an idea.

**xiv.**

He sits in the ceiling beams for a long time, thinking.

No one notices his presence, even as the stars begin to emerge from their place in hiding. The Fire Lord is... wrong. And he's known that for a long time, now. He just hasn't let himself admit it, because if the Fire Lord is wrong then that means what he did was wrong.

It also means that none of this will ever be easier.

The Eclipse starts tomorrow. The Avatar is alive. The Avatar is a child. Maybe, if they knew each other back then, they could have been friends.

He heads for the kitchen.

**xv.**

"Tell anyone about this and you're dead," The Prince casually tells the lonely chef still packing up his things. The chef jumps at the voice, turning sharply to watch the son of Fire Lord Ozai begin to unload the flour from the cupboards.

"Yes, sir." The chef squeaks, nodding and exiting the kitchen as fast as possible. The Prince gets to work.

When he's done, he drifts towards Azula's room.

He sheds his skin in the hallway and lets it float away with his deep exhale.

The Brother knocks on his sister's door.

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBcK-0MXG5M) \- Devil Town v2, Cavetown

_"the sick shall be treated"_

"Zuzu?" Azula is rubbing at her eyes, but they snap open when she smells what he's holding. Her eyes go wide, and then they look over his entire form _(Flour on his pants, like he wiped them off without thinking, a tiny smile and the glistening gold eyes that they share)_.

She huffs out a little breath of laughter, rolls her eyes, and opens up the door fully.

"Do you want a muffin?" He asks, unable to resist a little laughter of his own. She shakes her head and grabs one.

"Why are you here, Zuzu?" She responds before biting into the muffin. Her eyes go wide and she looks at him in surprise. "Where did you learn to cook?"

"Does it matter?" He lowers himself down to a sitting position on the floor, back propped up against Azula's bed. He sets down the tray between them, and after a seconds hesitation Azula drops down next to him.

"Which one?"

"Both." He takes a long pause, looking around her room. Her hair is almost messy, just an inch off of perfect. He grabs one of the muffins, leaning forward and staring down at it. "The invasions tomorrow."

"Obviously."

He chuckles. "You're going to destroy this place as soon as you can, aren't you?"

She looks over at him and grins, a bit of muffin stuck between her teeth like she's five again and they're sneaking into the kitchen to get an extra cookie after mom only allowed them one at dinner. "And salt the earth behind me."

They sit for a long time, like that, quiet with the remnants of laughter still hanging in the air between them. For once it's not sad, though. Instead, it's like when the sun is shining even though the moon is still sitting up in the sky.

"So, you're really going to do it, aren't you?" She doesn't make eye contact when she says it. His smile slides away. She doesn't have to specify.

"Yeah."

"And why shouldn't I stop you? Or better yet, do it myself?"

"Because then everyone will know you did it."

"So why shouldn't I stop you?"

"Because then I'll leave."

Their eyes meet this time, gold greeting gold in a cold staring contest. He hopes she doesn't try to stop him. He doesn't know what he'll do if she does.

"Fine. What do I get it out of it?" The Brother nearly deflates with relief.

"I'll give Mai the power to name you my heir only if she's positive you didn't kill me."

"Wow, paranoid much? You really think I would kill you?"

"You've been trying since you were six, I'm not an idiot, Lala." His voice is cold, but Azula laughs anyway. She doesn't even seem to register the old childish nickname. He can't stay mad at her, though. If his big brother instinct didn't die when she pushed him off a roof eight years ago it sure as hell isn't going to die now.

"Fine, fine."

Silence.

"Good luck."

"I'll need it."

"I know, Dum-Dum, that's why I said it."

He smiles softly. He wishes they were different and better, and more than they are now, but he can't make them any of that. All he can do is enjoy this more, while it lasts.

He hopes it lasts.

_(He doesn't leave this body behind; Instead, he folds it up and packs it away for when it can be better used. He closes its eyes. He doesn't want it to have anything to do with what comes next.)_

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvJjmWTg7Qo) Choke, I Don't Know How But They Found Me

_"containing dangerous forces"_

The Traitor curls up in the throne room, hidden in the shadows, for hours. His muscles begin to cramp a little ways in, but he takes only minimal time and space to stretch them out. His Dao Blades would reflect the torchlight if it wasn't as dark as it was.

The Traitor watches his father, The Fire Lord, lounging on his throne, waiting for The Avatar. The Traitor prays to Agni that The Avatar will not arrive.

He counts down in his head the seconds to The Eclipse, spending every one of them repeating to himself that he's doing the right thing.

He's doing the right thing, he tells himself when The Eclipse starts and his window begins to close.

He's doing the right thing, he tells himself when his father doesn't realize he's there.

He's doing the _(Jumping down onto the throne) _right _(It's not a fair fight) _thing _(Slicing open his fathers throat, watching the blood drip) _He's doing the right _(Down his fathers)_ thing _(Neck) _He's doing the right thing he's doing the right thing he'sdoingtherightthing.

He drops to his knees and presses his forehead to his father's chest, watching intensely as the life drains away and the minutes left in The Eclipse tick to a close.

He walks away.

**ii.**

Uncle is already out.

Of course, Uncle is already out. He shouldn't have expected anything else.

**ii.**

"Did you do it?" Azula asks The Brother.

"Yes," He whispers back.

"Good."

**iii.**

They end up blaming Ozai's death on an assassin.

An incredibly unfortunate occurrence, leaving his two children orphaned and his only son on the throne at sixteen. A tragedy.

One of the guards, one of the ones that was there when The Traitor was born and has watched his whole life flicker by, gives a nod of approval when the soon to be Fire Lord passes by.

Good.

He doesn't need this body anymore. He tears it off and walks away bloody and shaky and upright.

He's done begging gods he does not know for peace. He will make peace himself.

And if that makes him a god, so be it.

[i.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joYaaipAhQ8) \- You Should See Me In A Crown

_"their right of self determination"_

Zuko is crowned within the next two days. The official story is accepted, but the members of the Palace who have watched Zuko grow up all seem to know the truth if the looks they give him are anything to go by.

He sits on his father's throne, preparing to give the orders of withdrawal and surrender, mind already swarmed with the voices of the generals' objections. Then, he sucks in a deep breath and takes everything in.

He looks to his side, at Azula, loyal to no one but herself.

He can do that.

His gaze slides down to the council of generals, still probably loyal to his father. The ones who covered him in blood and threw him to the wolves when he had nothing but the leftovers of his spite to forge into a weapon.

He can do that, too.

His mouth tastes like conquered dirt. He swallows, and it only gets dryer.

One of the generals makes eye contact. Their gaze only holds for a few seconds before slipping away.

He's going to burn this city to the fucking ground.

Azula's voice echoes in his head: _"And salt the earth behind me."_

_Yes, _Zuko agrees. _And salt the earth behind him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment

**Author's Note:**

> come to my tumblr i need attention - https://www.tumblr.com/blog/theworldisburningletsmakesmores
> 
> ps comment to give me life


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